Description: Formative assessments offer the beginning, basic tools to describe and learn about your child’s personal characteristics and how they will ultimately absorb and understand information. Effective teacher-parent-child feedback is an essential feature of formative assessment. It provides better understanding of your child through corrective suggestions.

Why important: Unless you understand your child’s basic learning characteristics, you will not understand their gaps for higher academic outcomes.

Formative tests are the initial informal assessments conducted by both the parent and teacher. It begins the child's diagnostic process. Formative tests go on continuously. They are routine observations conducted at home and in the classroom. This also includes simple checklists, homework review, monitored and corrected assignments, and classroom behavior observations.

To describe a student’s strengths and weaknesses to help parents understand if there are learning gaps. It is to:

• Offer students opportunities to practice what they are learning
• Estimate a group’s existing knowledge prior to instruction
• Provide students with an organizer of upcoming learning objectives
• Gauge understanding during instruction
• Identify misconceptions following instruction
• Evaluate the effectiveness of instruction
• Designed not to produce grades or scores

Why formative assessment is important: Unless you understand your child’s basic learning characteristics, you will not understand their gaps to obtain academic outcomes.

We can begin with a simple checklist. These are characteristics of a student working below true potential. A student may be highly intelligent, but unable to process effectively. These behavioral symptoms may affect your student: Answer Yes or No

Here is a simple checklist for you to learn about your child:

We can begin with a simple checklist. These are characteristics of a student working below true potential. A student may be highly intelligent, but unable to process effectively. These behavioral symptoms may affect your student: Answer Yes or No

1. Shows strengths in some academic areas and severe weaknesses in others.


2. Teachers say, "He doesn't apply himself." Could excel if he would only try harder. Parents say, "He is too social," or "He parties too much."


3. Attempts to memorize tests. Does not comprehend overall concepts due to the failure to understand lectures and discussions


4. Unable to quickly analyze and remember graphs, charts, or formulate when presented in class.


5. Taking class notes is difficult, and loses the meaning in the process.


6. Poor test-taking behavior. Can not analyze what the test question is asking. Has poor thought flow on essay questions.


7. Easily distracted; poor attention span.


8. Lack of self discipline. Must be urged to complete class assignments.


9. Unable to organize thoughts; written communication is out of proper syntax and seems garbled.


10. Misinterprets visual and hearing cues in the environment, both socially, and in the classroom.


11. Can not follow oral or written directions. Can not remember the series in exact order.


12. Unable to draw conclusions from reading material.


13. Has problems with mathematical concepts. Higher math levels are difficult.


14. Poor cursive writing; prints everything.


15. Poor organizer. Messy. Doesn't know where to begin with assignments.


16. Impulsive or overactive.


17. Appears hurt or anxious when helped or corrected.


18. Fails to maintain eye contact when conversing with authority figures.


19. Procrastinates. Leaves school projects until the last minute.


20. Becomes anxious or freezes under test pressure.

Now, we will review school benchmarks, sometimes referred to as interim, benchmark tests. Then, we will move on to achievement tests and evaluations.